Hope and Whiskey
by EmeraldMonkeys
Summary: SwanQueen one shot. Regina is depressed over her unrequited love of Emma Swan until the blonde sees her in Granny's Diner and feels that they should talk. That's a terrible summary but please give it a try. All from Regina's POV. :) Luv u swan queen fans!


**Just a little one-shot I thought up. It's my first time writing SQ so I hope it's ok. I might post more one-shots if I think of any but for now it's just the one.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own OUAT or any of the characters. :(**

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'Love' was not a word that appeared in my dictionary. In fact, that insufferable word had long ago been exiled into the swirling vortex of water that was my chance of happiness, and flushed straight down the toilet. The only spark of hope remaining in my life was my precious teenage son, Henry and, even if I wasn't ready to admit it yet, that flash of blonde that was his birth-mother. Yes, Emma Swan, that insupportable Charming that came complete with blue-green eyes, a dopey smile and a temper that could match the tantrums of a toddler, wrapped up in a red leather jacket and tied together with tendrils of golden hair.

If I was being honest, my attraction to the beautiful disaster of a woman that was the Saviour had begun well into our Neverland adventures. At the time, we had more important things to do, like saving Henry but even so, I could not shake the idea that something had changed in our relationship. Perhaps it was the way that defiant glares gradually morphed into looks of understanding and shared sympathy. But it was after Neverland, that never-ending year when I had neither her nor Henry to save me from the cushy rainbow attitudes of the Charming idiots, that I finally understood that my attraction towards her was a little more than that. It felt like going to the doctor with a cold and discovering it was actually a dire case of pneumonia and it was this and the separation from my son that almost led to me ripping out my heart.

If you want to know where to find the source of the final nail in my coffin, and the reason that I was now sitting in Granny's with an overly large glass of whisky, just follow the stench of rum. What Emma sees in that insipid leather pirate and his guyliner, I have yet to fathom. But I have been reliably informed by the 'queen of true love' herself, Snow White, that they are in fact a perfect match. That said, she seems to think Robin and I are another match made in heaven and that is simply not true. Robin Hood, or forest boy as Miss Swan lovingly calls him I'm sure, is not, was not, and never will be my true love. He has Marian who truly loves him and that's more than I can ever give him. And the next time Tinkerbell tells me we're 'destined for each other' I hope she chokes on her pixie dust.

So perhaps I was not at the peak of my mayoral career, I thought, nursing my alcoholic salvation between both my hands before downing the remainder of it. I enjoyed the sensation of burning as it cascaded down my throat. Ruby looked at me with a pitying expression from across the diner where she was delivering Dr Whale his morning coffee. Yes. Whisky at half past eight in the morning. The worst part of it was that everyone thought I was sad because I couldn't have Robin. I scoffed to myself. 'Sad'. That utterly inadequate word that somehow was the only one I could use to describe my feelings right now, maybe because the alcohol had dulled any other emotions.

It was then that Emma entered the diner. My Emma. No. Someone else's Emma. I watched as she crossed to the bar and ordered her usual to go. A black coffee with two sugars for Daddy Charming and a cocoa with whipped cream and cinnamon and a bear claw for the sheriff herself. I knew it by heart. While she was waiting, she glanced over in my direction and I tried in vain to shrink into my seat, suddenly ashamed of my predicament. It didn't work. She saw me and walked over.

"Hey 'Gina," she greeted. The nickname would have caused anyone else to explode in a plume of smoke but it was Emma, and right now I'd take whatever she would give me.

"Hey," I returned unenthusiastically. In truth I was glad to see her but my cheeks were burning and it wasn't just the drink.

"Whisky for breakfast, huh?" she said, indicating to the empty glass with raised eyebrows. I watched the familiar crinkles form on her forehead but didn't reply. "I didn't think you were the kind to drink in the morning."

I lowered my gaze to the table.

"Yes, well. We can't all live off cocoa, can we Miss Swan?"

Miss Swan was good. It kept the space between us and if anything was worse than distant unrequited love, it was the kind that was dancing just out of your reach and begging to be touched, just like the staying strand of blond hair that had escaped from her messy pony tail. In my mind, I reached out to tuck it behind her ear, wondering just how soft her pale warm cheeks would feel under my cold hands. I shivered.

"Coffee, cocoa and a bear claw to go," Ruby announced from beside us. That was the cue for Emma to leave, for me to be alone again. I had work of course but right now I didn't think I could face a day in the office. They wouldn't miss me for one day, would they? I could always work from home.

I looked up and noticed that Emma was still there, hesitant to leave. I smiled weakly at her in a sort of dismissal but either she misunderstood or she merely ignored it. She sat down opposite me in the booth and pushed the coffee across the table in my direction.

"You know, Miss Swan," I said scathingly, "the reason you order coffee to go, is so that you can go…with your coffee." The usual bite was missing from my tone and she knew it.

"I changed my mind," she said, not in the least offended by my dismissal. It was one of the reasons I respected her more than most; she couldn't be deterred. At first I thought she was stubborn but now I consider it to be the determination, bordering on arrogance that every hero/heroine required. "You look like you needed some company," she explained.

I scoffed. So she pitied me, just like everyone else.

"If you're done with your pity party Sheriff, I'm sure your father likes his coffee to be at least luke warm when he drinks it."

Emma rolled her eyes. It was a move she had perfected since coming to Storybrooke and I like to think that I had some part in that.

"I thought you might like it, Regina," she said. "That is how you take it, right? Black with two sugars?"

I sighed even as my heart beat that little bit faster. So she remembered from that one time. It was at Mary-Margaret's flat when she had been making us each an instant coffee in her favourite scrabble mugs. I had rolled my eyes at it at first, wondering why she felt our mugs had to be inscribed with our initials before we were allowed to drink from them. But then when I saw her head and shoulders hunched for warmth over the steaming coffee, her clear almond nails draped over a black 'E', I found it nothing short of adorable. She had thought it strange that I took sugar in my coffee when I was generally very strict about sugary and fatty foods. It was true that I didn't approve of Henry having too much sugar in his diet, but I myself felt that sugar was imperative to good coffee. She had laughed and agreed with me, smiling one of those goofy smiles I didn't often see any more.

"I can go if you want me to?" she half asked, some hurt evident in her voice even as it brought me back to the present.

"Oh no, I'm sorry," I quickly tried to assure her. "I just zoned out for a minute. And you're right, that's my perfect coffee." I cast her a half-genuine smile. "Are you sure David won't mind?"

Truthfully I didn't give a damn either way but Emma nodded so I accepted the coffee and let it warm my hands slowly. We sat in a companionable silence for a few minutes. I sipped at my coffee and she tore absentmindedly at her bear claw. I was waiting for the moment when she would realise she was late for work and leave me again. I was late too, but I wasn't about to waste my remaining time with the blonde. I rarely saw her nowadays, apart from mornings such as these when I'd wait here in the booth waiting for her to arrive and leave like today. No. Not like today. Today was different because she was still here, in the same booth as me, looking across at me with an odd expression on her face. I tried to read it but failed, instead falling into the trap of her eyes.

"Is it Robin?" she asked finally. Well that ruined the moment. I scoffed derisively.

"Why does everyone think that?" I asked back.

"Because you loved him and he went off with Marian and you never saw him again?" she suggested, searching my eyes for something. I huffed again and I admit that I was a little irritated that no one had truly taken the time before now to discover what I was actually feeling.

"If you bothered to inquire after me at all instead of gallivanting off into the fields with your pirate boyfriend you would know that Robin is not the problem," I bit but I immediately felt bad as I saw the flash of hurt cross her face. That was twice now Regina, you idiot. "Emma, I didn't…I'm sorry. I didn't mean that." I tried to apologise, running my hand through my hair in frustration. It was gesture that I hadn't even done before I met the blonde. The hurt in her eyes was replaced slowly with something else, that indistinguishable emotion that irritates the hell out of me because I have no idea what it means. She looks into her cocoa.

"So you don't…you're not…" she stumbled over her next sentence, seemingly stuck over the phrase of it. "you're not in love with him then?" she finally managed to get out.

I fought the urge to laugh at the suggestion. Of course, she wants me and Robin to be some kind of happy family so she can go off with the one-handed wonder and not have to worry about me. I met her eyes and sobered immediately as what I saw was less like disappointment and more like…hope? I didn't let myself dwell on it.

"Robin Hood is…nice enough. But he's in love with Marian even if he is a little…dull for my taste. No. I don't love him." I told her, finally imparting to someone the true state of affairs. No more sympathetic glances from Emma, at least.

When I looked up again, I had to catch my breath because it was there again, alongside that unreadable expression. Hope, bright and clear, shone from her green eyes and seemed to pierce my own brown ones. I felt that I was disassembling the world's largest Russian doll. Whenever I discover something new, take off one layer, the next mystery was presented to me. There was no mistaking the expression but Emma Swan, that beautiful, brave and compassionate woman, could never feel anything for me.

Still, her gaze never left mine, and, by some mystical power, I could not retract my own eyes from hers either. Suddenly, the moment was over and she cleared her throat.

"Well…I should," she motioned vaguely to the clock on the wall that now showed that it was quarter past nine. She stood abruptly from the table and smiled at me for a goodbye. She walked over to where Ruby was watching behind the bar. They talked for a while before the waitress handed over another coffee to go, black, two sugars until in another whirlwind of yellow hair, she was gone again.

Regina slouched back into the chair. She should have known better than to let herself hope. Stupid Snow White and her stupid romantic twaddle. She cursed under her breath, clutching the cold coffee a little harder than was strictly necessary. She couldn't believe that she had ever let herself think for one moment that the blonde could ever like her in that way, let alone return her feelings as ardently as Regina herself felt.

Almost automatically, she rose from her seat and her feet carried her towards the entrance to the diner. The door opened, sounding the little bell overhead that she'd tuned out long ago. She stepped out into the cold morning air, a voice from inside the diner calling her back. She stopped mechanically at the sound of her name. It was Ruby.

The werewolf thrust a paper bag engraved with 'Granny's Diner' into her hands saying, "Emma said to give you this" then retreated back inside before Regina could stop her. She looked at the package in her hand. From its shape, she could guess that it was probably a take-away portion of Granny's famous lasagne. Emma and Regina often used to have lunch together in Regina's office back before Emma was so smitten with Hook and Regina would always have lasagne. She smiled slightly before walking to work. It was not until she sat her desk to have lunch later on, her lasagne heated and placed carefully on a proper plate before she would deign to eat it, that she noticed the note on the side of the paper bag. It read:

 _I broke up with Hook._

 _Call me?_

 _Emma xx_

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 **Thanks for reading and don't forget to review. :)**


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